“Walking is getting to be a pain,” Ron said irritably, emptying a sharp rock from his shoe. “Literally. Why can’t we just Apparate there? It’d save us a lot of work and time.”
“I’m sick of Apparating,” Harry said. He took a bite of one of the sandwiches Hermione had wisely brought with her. They were already getting stale. “Don’t you think we’ve done enough of that?”
“I’d just like to know how we’re going to eat when these things are gone,” Neville muttered, picking at a crust. “Are we going to have to live off plants and grass?”
“Moo,” said Ron, grinning at his stupid joke.
Everyone ignored him. “We could just ration the sandwiches,” Hermione frowned, “and Summon food from somewhere when they run out.”
“So who are we going to steal from?” Harry asked angrily. “Because that’s what it is, really. I’ve done and said a lot of things, but I won’t become a thief. And anyway, even muggles would notice if food started disappearing all of a sudden.” He immediately regretted his snap, but his frayed nerves were not happy at all with their present situation.
“Yes,” said Hermione, looking crestfallen. “I suppose they would.”
They were silent. Somewhere nearby, a cricket chirped.
Harry put down his sandwich. “Does anybody really remember why exactly we’re going to Grimmauld Place? The reason’s kind of been lost in everything else that’s gone on.”
They all looked at each other. “Er,” Hermione said.
“Oh... no, not really... I don’t think,” Ron admitted sheepishly.
“To... rest and recover?” Neville suggested tentatively. Luna was quiet.
“Brilliant.” Harry threw up his hands. “Just brilliant. What’s the point of going there and wasting time if we have no point? So we’ve... we’ve hit another dead end.”
The fire hissed and sparked. Luna chose that moment to finally speak. “Didn’t you want to see if that Order of the Phoenix thing was still there, or if Professor Snape is hiding out there?”
“That might’ve been it,” Harry said, not quite believing it himself. But even if they had no real reason, he realized that now that Dumbledore had told him that Snape was on their side, his curiosity was strong enough to drive him to Snape’s hideout. He wanted to see why the Headmaster trusted him. We’ve got to find him.
Hermione had a closed, brooding look on her face. Harry wondered what she was thinking about, but knew she’d tell them in her own time. Every few seconds she’d do something with her fingers, staring at them intently.
Ron stared at her. “Hermione, are you ” are you okay?”
She looked up at him, the shuttered look disappearing to be replaced with an air of intense excitement. “I’ve got an idea, and if I’m right, I’m much better than okay! But Harry, I need you to tell me something.”
“What?” Harry asked, feeling slightly confused.
“What exactly did that locket Horcrux look like?”
The question shocked Harry, but he pretended not to mind as he racked his brain for that memory of Dumbledore’s... “Um... I think it was big and heavy, gold, with Slytherin’s mark, the serpentine ‘S’ on the front.” That sounded about right. “Why do you want to know?”
Her excitement was catching. Harry felt a surge of energy through his body, stimulating his brain. Ron looked about ready to jump up and dance for them. All fatigue was forgotten as they leaned forward, eager to hear Hermione’s new revelation.
She was about to answer when her eyes grew wide. She put a shaking hand to her mouth. “Oh, no,” she whispered.
“What is it?” Harry asked, frowning.
Hermione shook herself. “Harry. Do you and Ron remember when we had to clean up Grimmauld Place, about two years ago?”
“How could we not!” Ron burst. Harry nodded. Back when Sirius was still alive...
“Okay, well, I think I know where one of the Horcruxes is, or was, anyway, because I’m not sure what happened to ””
“Please, Hermione, get to the point!” Ron cut in impatiently. “What’s Number Twelve got to do with You-Know-Who’s Horcruxes?”
“Oh, very much!” Hermione gushed. “You see, that’s where...” Her eyes grew widened again. “Then... I’ve solved... I think I need to sit down.” She sat on a fallen beam of wood, mouth unbecomingly open in shock. “Harry do you still have that ” that false locket that you and Dumbledore found?”
“Yeah.” Harry pulled the thin chain over his head and handed the locket to Hermione, who yanked it from him with a force that surprised them.
She pulled it open and shook out the scrap of parchment that Harry had read so many times he knew it by heart:
I know I will be dead long before you read this
but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret.
I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can.
I face death in the hope that when you meet your match,
you will be mortal once more.
R.A.B.
But why did Hermione seem so enthralled by the message? Did she have an idea who R.A.B. was? Harry could almost see the wheels turning in her head.
“D’you know something we don’t, Hermione?” he asked slowly.
Hermione didn’t seem to have heard his question. She stared at the parchment in front of her with a look of rapt disbelief. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Why didn’t we see this before?”
She put down the locket and its contents. The faraway look came back into her eyes. “Alright... Harry, Ron, Luna, Neville, you’re going to have to pay close attention now, okay? Please.”
They all nodded, mystified.
Hermione took a deep breath, then began to speak in a rushing torrent of words and phrases. If she hadn’t told us to listen carefully, I don’t think I’d understand her, Harry thought later. He shut out all outside distractions to listen.
“You’ll have to rack your memories to figure this one out for yourselves, and I suppose Neville and Luna weren’t there at all, so here it is: I’m almost positive I’ve figured out where the real locket Horcrux is. Or was. I’m not sure if it’s still where it was, but depending on where it was when we were there, the Horcrux just might be in Number Twelve Grimmauld Place.”
She waited breathlessly for their reactions. But her speech had been so hurried and jumbled, Harry felt nobody would have any reaction except for some very confused questions. He himself was still trying to think through what she’d said. And sure enough, after a moment:
Ron blinked. “What? Erm... Would you mind repeating that, but a bit slower this time?”
Hermione huffed in exasperation, but repeated what she had said. Harry sat back and allowed himself a minute to digest the unexpected information. “And, how exactly did you riddle that out?” he asked. “Then you know who R.A.B. is, and where ” how the Horcrux got there and everything?”
“Yes,” said Hermione patiently.
There was a pause. “Then... could you tell us?” Ron suggested.
Hermione sniffed. “I was building suspense, if you must know. It took me ages to get this right. Fine. What would you like to know first? If I just told you everything at once, we’d still be here the day after tomorrow.”
Harry sifted through the holes in his knowledge of Voldemort’s pieces of soul, finally coming upon what he considered a suitable first question. “Who stole the locket from the cave first? Who’s R.A.B.?”
Hermione bit her lip. “I ” I think I’ve changed my mind. Starting from there would make the telling too mixed up, and besides, I’d rather tell you everything in my own way.”
“Well then, why’d you ask?” Ron asked exasperatedly.
“Because... Well... Oh, never mind,” Hermione snapped finally. “I’ll just do it all myself.”
Harry sat back to listen as Hermione began.
“I suppose it all began in Grimmauld Place. When we were clearing out that old cabinet, remember?”
Ron and Harry nodded. Hermione quickly continued her story.
“So you remember all that magic junk we had to clear out. We threw lots of little things away... Like that creepy old music box, remember? And... a small locket we tried but couldn’t open. Please try and remember.”
Harry thought she was using that word far too much, but he did remember. And as he looked through his memories of the Black family’s house, a faint, niggling suspicion crept to his mind. He thought he had a good idea where Hermione’s train of thought was heading. “D’you think... that was a Horcrux?”
“Yes. I’m almost certain of it.”
“Wicked,” Ron breathed.
Neville and Luna looked similarly impressed. “How in the world did you figure that out, Hermione?” Luna asked, her dreamy tone quickly being overcome by a strong curiosity.
“Well, it took a lot of thinking, and of course I got some very good pieces of proof to help my theory along,” said Hermione. “When Harry showed me the locket ” We did tell you about all that, didn’t we?”
This time Neville and Luna were the ones who nodded.
“Good. When Harry showed me the locket, then, I looked through hundreds of families and names and all sorts of musty old documents that might have included the initials ‘R.A.B.’, but I didn’t have any luck. That is, until I thought to look through purebloods who publicly supported the Dark side and what Voldemort was doing. Then, I found a newspaper article ””
She cut herself off and began frantically rummaging in her robes pockets. “Aha!” she exclaimed at last, triumphantly pulling out a crumpled piece of paper. She spread it out in front of her. “I thought I’d brought it with me. Have a look, all of you, and tell me what you think of it.”
They all gathered around the paper. It was a newspaper article of the Daily Prophet, Harry saw, dated some seven- or eighteen years previously. He squinted and pushed up his glasses to read the tiny print. The headline declared: Death Eater Found Dead By Ministry.
Self-proclaimed Death Eater, Regulus Arcturus Black, was found dead outside his London home by Ministry of Magic wizards this morning.
At approximately six o’clock in the morning, several passersby claim to have heard loud noises coming from Black’s home. Voices seemed to be arguing, then a loud bang could be heard.
“I was just watering my garden when I heard loud noises,” says Lucille Raine, a long-time resident of the area. “Given the dangerous times we’re in, the only thing sensible was to inform the Ministry, which I did immediately.”
The sole Death Eater in a family of pureblood wizards, Black seemed to have been the victim of a violent attack that left him fatally injured. Though the Ministry has not yet released any details concerning the nature of Black’s death, outside sources report that they “are confident that the murder was done by a Death Eater, or maybe even by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named himself.”
“Death Eaters have been known to kill each other on You-Know-Who’s orders,” says Rufus Scrimgeour, Head Auror. “It is not uncommon for You-Know-Who himself to perform an important murder. My department has found several people disposed of by their master. They may have decided they were in too deep, and tried to desert, or perhaps they were frightened of the authorities. Black’s body also has the same signs of a sudden, violent death... Nothing has yet been confirmed.”
Investigation of Regulus Black’s death will continue. New information is expected to arrive daily. For updates read England’s official Wizarding newspaper, The Daily Prophet.
The rest of the page was filled by the picture of a young man, who looked like a younger, less handsome version of Sirius Black. He seemed to be in his early twenties, with black hair and startling gray eyes. He was smiling, but there was a look of such intense pain in his eyes that Harry ached for the man he knew must be Sirius’s younger brother Regulus.
A chill went up Harry’s spine as he reread the article. His gaze lingered on his full name: Regulus Arcturus Black. That’s him. R.A.B....
Hermione looked around at them, eagerly awaiting their awe and surprise. But Harry couldn’t say he really was surprised. It all fit. A Death Eater who turned back, stole one of Voldemort’s most important possessions, and was killed for deserting... It just makes perfect sense. Poor Regulus. Poor Sirius, to have his brother killed just because he discovered the truth! I never imagined I would all be so complex, so... connected. Things I found out about years ago are coming back to play a major role in this race. He could perfectly remember Sirius telling him a bit about his younger brother, whom he’d called an idiot. If only you’d known, Sirius...
Harry stood, mind suddenly made up. “Well then, what are we waiting for? After another couple days, we’ll reach Grimmauld Place, and we can grab the Horcrux and get out of there, no problem.”
“But Harry, haven’t you been listening?” Hermione asked. “We threw it away, remember? We threw it away, it could be anywhere by now, miles and miles from here! If it’s really gone, we have absolutely no chance of finding it in time.”
It could be anywhere. The reality slammed into Harry as effectively as a boulder; he suddenly couldn’t breathe, and had to stagger back to his seat. We threw it away, remember? They had thrown it away, and Harry did remember. He’d thrown it away himself, glancing at it unconcernedly before tossing it into the garbage. He hadn’t paid any attention to details. He hadn’t had a clue of the importance surrounding the object he’d so carelessly thrown out. And now it was gone, probably for good.
What was the point of going back to he old house now?
Sitting there, Harry admitted to himself the one thing he had never wanted to admit. He was well and truly defeated. There was no way they could track the locket to whatever rubbish heap it had landed in. There was no hope of finding the Slytherin Horcrux if it really had left Number Four. And if they didn’t find it, Voldemort would live on, as close to immortal as anyone had ever gotten. He’d continue his path of destruction and completely annihilate anyone who tried to get in his way. He would take over and crush the world with his terrible power, stamping out whatever hope was left.
Me, Harry realized. I’m the world’s only hope for surviving this thing. But I can’t, I can’t do it. I’m just a seventeen-year-old wizard in way over his head. I barely know anything about the events going on around me. How can I do anything to stop him when there is no hope?
All of a sudden the defeatist thoughts were beaten away by another voice that cut through his dim reasoning. It was a voice he knew as well as his own, a voice that had once belonged to a girl, a girl with red hair and a dazzling smile.
There is always hope.
Ginny’s voice echoed in his head, and he found he believed it. There was always hope. All he had to do was keep a firm grip on it and never let go, no matter the circumstances. The words were everywhere. Harry saw Hermione looking at him, saying something to him with a concerned look on her face, but all he heard were those four words, repeating themselves until they formed a beating rhythm in his head.
There is always hope!
“HARRY!”
A shout pulled him back to the present. Harry opened his eyes, which he hadn’t realized he’d closed in the first place. He saw Ron, Hermione, Neville, and Luna all staring at him, and in that one moment, when the hope still lingered inside him, he knew the answer. What had happened to the locket?...
“Kreacher,” said Harry, feeling quite detached from the others.
They obviously felt the same way. “What, Harry?” Ron asked uncertainly. He glanced at Hermione uneasily. Harry had a good idea of what they were thinking: Has Harry finally cracked? Has all the pressure gone to his head at last? What does Kreacher have anything to do with this?
Harry knew exactly what Ginny would have retorted. He smiled as the rude words flew into his head, then stuffed them aside. He didn’t think Ginny’s words would help at the moment. Besides, he had a bit of explaining to do, and he didn’t need thoughts of Ginny’s biting temper distracting him.
He ran through his argument. Unfortunately, he could see several flaws, but that couldn’t be helped. His friends would think that he was crazy, that he was relying completely on luck, and maybe he was, a little. It’s not like they don’t think that already... Probably think I belong in St. Mungo’s by now...
“If we can count on Kreacher,” Harry said slowly, “the Horcrux is sure to still be in the house. If he was up to form on the day we got rid of the locket, we can know exactly where it is.”
“’Up to form’?” Hermione repeated. “What do you mean?”
Before Harry could reply, Neville said, “Wait a second... Am I missing something? Who’s Kreacher?”
Harry realized that Neville and Luna really had no idea what he was talking about, so without further ado he launched into an explanation as short and to the point as he could manage (which wasn’t all that short). He told them about Grimmauld Place, their time there during the summer and vacations, and Kreacher. He told them how he now owned the place, along with the house-elf, the one who had betrayed Sirius to his death.
Finally, to them all, he said, “Kreacher didn’t like us cleaning out the house, throwing valuable things away like that. So he snuck some things away, stealing and hiding them before they could be gotten rid of. So if he was watching closely enough, that day we got t the cabinet, an the locket...”
“...He could have stolen and hidden the locket!” finished Neville excitedly. “Which means it could still be in the house!”
Hermione had been thinking silently, but at Neville’s words she frowned. “Yes, but there’s one”two big problems with that idea, Harry. ‘If Kreacher took it, it could still be there.’ How do we know Kreacher really did it, that this isn’t just another dead end? After all, there were loads of other Black heirlooms that would have looked much more valuable to Kreacher. How can we know he just happened to choose the locket?”
Harry’s heart sank. This was the first time Hermione had expressed doubt in their search. Was she finally getting fed up? Tired of some wild-goose chase that would most likely end in failure?
“I don’t know, Hermione,” said Harry wearily. “We can’t know what Kreacher did, not until we get back to Grimmauld Place. I’m sorry, but I just don’t know. If you’re tired of this, you can go home if ” if you want. I can finish this alone.”
His four friends were deathly silent. Harry could tell they were thinking about his proposal, considering it seriously. His heart dropped another few inches, and he felt an anxious, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. The waiting was the worst thing he’d ever had to go through; if Ron, Hermione, Luna, and Neville decided to go and return to their normal lives, Harry would be alone. Chasing after Voldemort alone, fighting him alone, just... alone.
Harry bit his lip. He knew he couldn’t really do it all on his own. The only reason he’d gotten so far was because of his friends. Even before he had learned about Horcruxes and prophecies and everything, Ron and Hermione had been there for him. Always.
Could he go on if they chose to give up?
The dread gnawed away at Harry. His mind went over and over the thought that he would be alone, until he couldn’t even remember the possibility of them staying.
He knew this night had been threatening ever since they’d joined him in Godric’s Hollow. If there was truly a breaking point, this was it. Their companionship was dangerously close to breaking up. What would they say?
Neville and Luna were the first to look up. “Harry, I don’t know about the others, but I’m sticking with you until the end,” Neville said earnestly. “We came along, we helped continue this thing, and now we’ve got to finish it.”
Luna nodded in agreement, for once serious and quite down-to-earth. “Yes, Harry,” she said, “if you’re going on, so am I. The way things have been going so far, anyway, you’ll need all the help we can give you.”
Harry smiled weakly, but knew it was Ron and Hermione’s answers he needed to hear the most. Finally, Hermione looked hard at him.
“Do you honestly think we could abandon you to him, Harry. You can’t do this by yourself, and I think you know it. I can’t speak for Ronald, but if I were to go back now, I ” I wouldn’t be able to live with it. I am definitely coming with you, whether you like it or not.”
Harry grinned half-heartedly. And that left Ron. Harry felt as if the whole evening balanced on the edge of a knife, ready to come crashing down should Ron’s answer tip the scale even the slightest bit. If he of all people refused to continue...
At last Ron blinked and shook his head He reached out and, to Harry’s surprise, gripped him by the shoulder and looked him straight in the eye. “D’you really we could do that, Harry? After all we’ve been through together? What kind of friends do you think we are? Like Neville said, we’re all in this together.”
The room seemed to sigh in relief. They all relaxed. He had chosen to stay. The moment had passed; the balance would hold.
“Thanks, Ron,” Harry muttered. “You have no idea what this means to me.”
Ron sat back and again reached for his half-eaten sandwich, which had lain forgotten on the makeshift table beside him. “What are friends for,” he said cheerily.
The tension was gone. Everyone felt it at once. The balance was restored; they would all go on together, as they’d originally planned.
The others agreed that Harry’s idea was their best bet. “If we don’t find anything there,” said Harry, “I guess we can go ”” He stopped. He really had no idea what to do after that. “I guess we’ll just have to think about that when it happens,” he finished weakly. No one questioned his use of the word “when." After talking for a while longer, one by one they fell asleep. But Harry lay awake long after the rest had drifted off, thinking while he stared up at the stars visible through the holey ceiling.
They awoke the next morning to a brilliant sunrise. Dousing the leftover embers of their fire, they began the day’s long walk to Number Twelve Grimmauld Place...